Jan 4, 2010

'I Delivered All These Children Because I Didn't Know There Was Another Way.'

Beatrice Adongo, 45-year-old Ugandan mother of 13, receiving an injection of Depro-Provera. Reported by Shashank Bengali (“Unplanned Births Swamp Africa”).

In December, we applauded the Raleigh News & Observer (our hometown paper) for syndicating a three-part series by Shashank Bengali, of McClatchy Newspapers, on issues at the crux of IntraHealth’s day-to-day work: family planning and girls’ education for maternal and child health. It’s worth restating our position:

We are fundamentally committed to all women, everywhere, having access to modern contraception—at the very least, accurate knowledge of family planning services—to protect their lives and their families’ well-being. And training health workers to integrate family planning into routine services is an essential way to extend vital, voluntary options to women and communities in need.

 So if you didn’t catch Bengali’s coverage, the stories are still worth checking out:

Unplanned births swamp Africa
SIRAKANO, Uganda —At age 45, after giving birth to 13 children in her village of thatch roofs and bare feet, Beatrice Adongo made a discovery that startled her: birth control. 

"I delivered all these children because I didn't know there was another way," said Adongo, who started on a free quarterly contraceptive injection last year. Surrounded by her weary-faced brood, her 21-month-old boy clutching at her faded blue dress, she added glumly: "I fear we are already too many in this family." On a continent where fewer than one in five married women use modern contraception, an explosion of unplanned pregnancies is threatening to bury Adongo's family and a generation of Africans under a mountain of poverty.

 Read the rest of this article. Watch a companion video (03:39).

Africa's population boom traps children in poverty
KANO, Nigeria—The boy stepped into the grubby street, looking both ways for traffic. He was wearing the clothes he wore yesterday and seemingly all the days before: a pair of too-big cotton pants and a black shirt so tattered that it seemed ready to fall off his body.

Read the rest of this article. Watch a companion video (03:39).

Pressured to marry, African girl fights for her education
DERRE, Mozambique—Last year, after the hard rains had gone from these highlands and it was time to pull the sweet potatoes from the red earth, young men from nearby villages began coming around to ask after the slender seventh-grader with the almond eyes and the shy smile.

Read the rest of this article. Watch a companion video (03:39)

Posted by at 08:15 AM